Dracula in the Provinces

Dracula in the Provinces
Italian film poster
Directed by	Lucio Fulci
Written by	Lucio Fulci Bruno Corbucci Pupi Avati Mario Amendola
Starring	Lando Buzzanca
Music by	Franco Bixio Fabio Frizzi Vince Tempera
Cinematography	Sergio Salvati
Edited by	Ornella Micheli
Release date	1975
Running time	100 minutes
Language	Italian

Il cav. Costante Nicosia demoniaco ovvero: Dracula in Brianza, internationally released as Dracula in the Provinces and Young Dracula, is a 1975 Italian horror-comedy film directed by Lucio Fulci and produced by Pupi Avati. It starred Lando Buzzanca, John Steiner and Sylva Koscina. Joe D'Amato and Sergio Salvati were 2nd unit cameramen, Fabio Frizzi provided the music score, and Giannetto ("Zombi 2") de Rossi handled the special effects.

Costante Nicosia (Lando Buzzanca), a businessman of Sicilian origins, is a boorish, irascible, man having married for wealth. He is the new boss of a recently inherited toothpaste factory and the owner of a local Rome basketball team. Nicosia is abusive to his employees and to his hunchbacked side-kick Peppino (Antonio Aliocca). Nicosia is also extremely superstitious. Peppino is less of a friend than a good luck charm as far as the insnsstitive Nicosia is concerned. He believes that it brings good luck to rub a hunchback's hump. In one day, a black cat crosses Nicosia's path, and he breaks a mirror in his apartment. Superstition demands that he persuade a virgin to urinate over the broken shards of glass in order to halt the tide of bad luck. Abusively, he passes a decrepit old spinster who lives next door to him mistakenly assuming that she has never done the "deed". Nicosia's relationship with his wife Mariu (Sylva Koscina) is scarcely more convivial for he is also antagonstic towards her.

Reluctantly bowing to family pressure, Nicosia employs his loafing brother-in-law into a menial post at the factory. But he fires him the following day after catching the man asleep on the job, snoring loudly. That evening at a family gathering at his apartment, he is accosted by his ungrateful in-laws who try to shame him into giving the feckless mans his job back. Instead of acquiescing to family practice, he bursts into an escalating tirade of rudeness against the singers figure of his Great Aunt Maria (Grazia Spadaro). The old woman finally responds to his cynical remarks by uttering a curse. Nicosia dismisses her at first, that is until the old woman threatens of pour oil onto the floor; this heavy duty bit of magical business breaks Nicosia's nerve, and he recants in a babbling panic. As Nicosia grovels for the curse to be lifted, and the old woman refuses to do so.